herstory

#remakemistresses responds directly to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shutdown of the arts industry in Australia and Internationally. Following the lead of @tussenkunstenquarantaine‘s Stay At Home Challenge! on Instagram, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Getty in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), and many others challenged their now at home audiences to playfully engage in the century’s old pastime of recreating famous paintings or tableau vivants.

#remakemistresses also responds to the postponed NGA Know My Name season of Australian women artists. Originally slated for early 2020 it is now rescheduled for November 2020. As co-author with Elvis Richardson of the forthcoming book CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008, charting the history and legacy of the CoUNTess project’s revelations of gender asymmetry in the art world, I am keenly aware that women are severely underrepresented in national art collections – a mere 25% at the NGA.

Any call to create shared cultural moments from art collections primarily composed of “old masters” is ripe for parafeminist intervention. Both parody and femmage, my remakes of contemporary Australian women artists or “modern mistresses” are shot on an iPad using only materials at hand, and posted (mostly without image manipulation) to Instagram and Facebook under the #remakemistresses hashtag.

#remakemistresses was developed with the support of the Arts and Culture Grant Program, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, South Australia.

#remakemistresses production is supported by Australia’s Copyright Agency

…. Melinda Rackham is an artist, curator and author.

When the internet was young, Melinda wove tales of networked intimacy, intrigue and identity. As well as creating award winning web narratives and virtual reality worlds, her international career in new media included founding and producing the lively multidisciplinary -empyre- online forum [2002]. Originally part of her PhD on the soft bounds of Virtual Reality space, -empyre- continues today as a vital global critical platform for academics, artists curators and writers.

As ACMI’s first Networked Art curator in 2003, Melinda introduced the creativity of the internet and emerging technologies to new audiences; later leading ANAT – Australia’s foremost national art and technology organization, through an expansive period in art+science, experimental sound and mobile art practices [2005-09]. She engaged diverse communities with crochet, film and coloured poo while curator at RiAus; and while Adjunct Professor in Media and Communications at RMIT University Melinda curated Dreamworlds : Australian Moving Image on multiple massive public screens in China during the Beijing Olympics.

In various capacities Melinda has participated in a multitude of Symposiums, Biennales, Film Festivals and global events such as Ars Electronica and DocumentaXII. She has undertaken art and writing residencies in Australia, Finland, New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands and UK, as well as living for extended periods in recent years on the Aeroplane Homelands near Pukatja (Ernabella) in the Central Australian APY Lands.

Melinda’s publications explore the worlds of art, artists, social justice and environmental issues, winning awards for Writing in New Media at the Adelaide Festival [2000] and the SALA Art Writers Award [2018]. Her substantial monograph Catherine Truman – Touching Distance, [2106] explores the many facets of a jeweller’s career from the visceral precision of sculptural form to working with medical researchers, while the co-authored ADOPTED anthology [2017] presents raw poetry and prose from adult adoptees on loss, trauma and reclaiming self.

She regularly writes catalogue essays, exploratory pieces and book chapters for Australian and overseas publications. Recently Melinda revisited the slimey low-res world of the 1990’s internet for a series of commissioned essays on VNS Matrix, South Australia’s global Cyberfeminist supergroup. This pedagogical archive [2109] comes at a time when their game works, Manifestos and ecological treatises are again reverberating across the interwebs.

But perhaps her most encompassing project to date is the forthcoming CoUNTess: Spoiling Illusions since 2008. Probing the patriarchy at work, is a timely exploration of embedded gender inequity in the artworld, co-authored with CoUNTess creator Elvis Richardson. Combining artist’s memoir, data analysis, many feminisms, pie charts, biting humour and critical writing the book reveals the impact of systemic gendered inequity on art, artists, women and culture and suggests sustainable ways forward.

Currently Adjunct Research Professor at UniSA, more information can be found at her domain subtle.net. Melinda’s curatorial Instagram intervention, recreating the work of Australian contemporary women artists, can be found at #remakemistresses